29. Seth
Seth
I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor in my bedroom with an old scrapbook in my lap. It’s filled to the brim with pictures and cut-outs from fashion magazines. Dried flowers and old wedding invitations with different fonts I liked. Inspirational speeches and vows.
I used to save everything I could find. Anything I liked and wanted for my own wedding. I saved it in a plastic bag until Lou bought me this scrapbook and helped me put it together.
When I moved to San Diego, I brought only the most important things with me. Apparently, this made the cut. It’s been in the box at Andrew’s for years. Hidden in the back of the storage and completely forgotten. A part of the old me.
And then Kaden started talking about how he thinks it’s nice wanting to get married, and I was confused again.
I thought I knew every facet of this new me. That I knew what was expected of me. But maybe I’m wrong again.
I close the scrapbook, putting it back into the box and pick up the next thing in there. An old photo album.
Lou likes to take pictures, and when we were younger, she always carried a small Polaroid wherever we went. Taking pictures of everything. Trees she thought looked cool, old people holding hands, and us. Always so many pictures of us.
I liked it at first. I loved posing in front of the camera, doing stupid faces, or trying to look sexy, or cute, or whatever.
The first few photos in the album shows that.
There’s a picture of me hugging a lamppost, one leg kicked back, foot in the air, and my smile is so wide, even in this shitty quality photo, my dimple is crystal clear.
Another one of me, head thrown back in a laugh. Lou and me on the beach. Lou and me on an old swing set—feet dangling off the ground. Smiling. Laughing. Always so damn happy.
I turn a couple of pages and we are in that swing again, and I’m wearing a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes.
Shoulders drawn high. Another one of me and Lou in her backyard.
Her mom took this photo. Lou and I are in a chair each, looking at each other.
Lou’s wearing a flower crown and smiles at me.
My face looks like it’s made of stone. Empty eyes, mouth into a thin and weird-looking smile.
I flip another couple of pages and the photos change again. There’re pictures of me in profile, eyes turned down, or away. A few blurry ones of the back of me, as if I turned around just before she took the picture.
I hate them. I don’t know why we kept them. Lou said they were artsy or whatever, but they’re not.
I close the album, and put it back into the box before I shove it back in my closet.